Should you join a community or start your own?

As someone advising clients on how to market using the Web and social media, it’s the ultimate existential question.

1. Joining the Community

2. Grow your own

3. The alternative

While the ultimate goal is to make your organization a trusted source of information, a leader in the field and the hub of a community of passionate users, the first step is a small one. Find out where the conversations and chatter around your brand are and get involved. Interact with your customers and stakeholders. Have a real conversation with them. Once you’re part of the community you can start to Instigate. Lead those conversations, become the reason for the buzz and the source of the chatter.

The BMBY recommendations to building a community

Monitor. Assess. Interact. Lead

Look>Listen>Learn>Lead

Get: Informed; Immersed; Interactive; Involved; Instigating (previously i-ddicted)